Historic and statistical data relating to the past performance of major league baseball players and their teams represent an important, if not crucial part of the baseball experience. Such statistics are typically available in reference books devoted to the subject or on baseball cards. With a reference book, the user typically searches for the desired information by referring to an index or table of contents, or by thumbing through the reference book until the desired player's table of statistics is found. The typical table of statistics contains 13-26 parameters for each year of a player's professional career, which makes the process of searching for a particular statistic (e.g. "bases on balls" in 1986 for a specific player) a tedious one. In using baseball cards, the user is at the mercy of his or her previous organization, which may or may not be a problem.
A further problem with prior art methods of retrieving baseball statistics is that they are not well suited to real time use in the field (i.e. at the baseball game). The reference books and baseball card collections tend to be large and difficult to carry. Moreover, few collectors are willing to risk their prized baseball card collections in the sometimes harsh environment of the baseball stadium.
Thus, the baseball fan is usually relegated to bringing along a portable radio and gleaning whatever statistical facts the radio announcer considers of interest.